-LRB- CNN -RRB- Days after North Korea 's most famous defector revealed some of the details in his accounts about life in prison camps were n't true , the country 's government fired back Tuesday .

Shin Dong-hyuk 's `` admission of his lies goes to prove that everything told by those who claim to be ` defectors from the North ' can not be trusted , '' the state-run KCNA news agency said , citing a spokesman for North Korea 's Association for Human Rights Studies .

The government news agency called Shin a swindler who `` styled himself a ` survivor ' in the ` concentration camp of political offenders ' that does not exist in -LRB- North Korea -RRB- no more than a sheer lie and a fiction . ''

Shin 's horrific descriptions of his time in a North Korean prison camp became a best-selling book , made him a key witness before the United Nations and grabbed headlines around the world .

He was one of the most high-profile North Korean defectors , winning several human rights awards and inspiring a documentary as his biography about escaping from a total control zone called Camp 14 was translated into 27 languages .

But over the weekend , the publisher of the book and its author said Shin -- who claims to have been born in and escaped from a North Korean prison camp -- had admitted several inaccuracies , including the length of time he spent in Camp 14 .

Shin still maintains he was severely tortured , but he 's changed details about the dates and locations of what he says transpired .

North Korea 's statement Tuesday says that Shin 's revelation shows that last year 's human rights resolution that the U.N. General Assembly passed criticizing North Korea `` was no more than a false document cooked up on the basis of false ` testimonies ' made by human scum . ''

Advocates have said any inaccuracies in Shin 's story should n't undermine the staggering suffering he and other survivors of North Korea 's prison camps have helped bring to light . And the chairman of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry into North Korea noted that Shin was one of hundreds of witnesses , adding that his testimony consisted of only two paragraphs in a 400-page report .

`` It 's a very small part of a very long story . And it really does n't affect the credibility of the testimony , '' said Michael Kirby , chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into North Korea .

CNN has not been able to reach Shin , who noted in a Facebook post apologizing for the inaccuracies in his story that `` these will be my final words and this will likely be my final post . ''

In an opinion article he wrote for CNN Digital last year , Shin noted that North Korea had made repeated personal attacks against him .

`` The dictatorship in North Korea has never been honest or truthful for more than six decades it has been in existence , '' he wrote .

North Korea has repeatedly denied Shin 's claims and described testimony before the United Nations commission by him and others as `` slander . ''

In a video posted last year on a website that carries pro-Pyongyang propaganda , Shin 's father denied that his son was ever in a prison camp .

Shin said in response that the government had taken his father hostage .

CNN 's Judy Kwon contributed to this report .

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North Korean state media slams defector for his `` admission of lies ''

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His claims about prison camps are `` no more than a sheer lie and a fiction , '' KCNA says